Tiny Hearts: Chapter Five
The library wasn't being used to its fullest potential. That is, the internet cut out after five minutes and they didn't get any work done with their assignment. Instead, Anna was distracted googling (for those five minutes) 'wishes coming true' and 'my dog is a person'. Unfortunately for Anna, her first attempt to locate a book was completely unhelpful. The assistant had practically run away when she asked if he had any tomes on changing people to animals (and oh no, it's because my dog turned into a person and I'm trying to change her back didn't work as well as she had hoped). Even the internet, during a random surge of connectivity, proved about as helpful as it always was, leading her down random rabbit holes and onto the site of a particularly crazy maniac who seemed to take some sort of fetishised pleasure in describing the magic that went into changelings (Anna was suitably creeped out by the time Rapunzel managed to save her from that particular black hole). "This is impossible," she cried out after several hours of fruitless searching, collapsing on the desk with her head in her arms. She felt Rapunzel's hand rest on her head gently, but the only thought that struck her was that she'd probably be treating another human in the same manner. Naturally, that thought caused her to let out another groan and grind her face in further. "What did I do to deserve this?!" she lamented loudly (and, in Rapunzel's opinion, slightly dramatically). And, of course, she didn't get a response. The lights flickered momentarily, causing Anna and Rapunzel to look around, slightly worried. It had begun snowing again, and sometime between the third webpage on goblins and the twenty-sixth book on færies (and that strange soundtrack-thing by Troika), the library had filled up and emptied several times, like waves on a beach. And by the end of it, Anna was absolutely no closer whatsoever to solving the mystery of 'wishing' for Elsa to be a real person. Sure, she could concede that yeah, she thought Elsa was better than Hans, but at this stage, the creepy cashier with the strange robot fetish and who would always wear weird purple capes was better than Hans. And, she was avoiding the cashier. Like the plague. The plague. (or One Direction). She wanted to cry out in frustration, and, after a brief glance around and finding that the library was actually empty save for her, Rapunzel, a staff member and a strange brown-haired girl who was reading a massive book that Anna didn't even want to know the name of (or she did, but only to avoid it), she let out a wail (causing Rapunzel to hit her over the head to shut her up). Eventually, though, Anna gave up. She'd need to talk to some experts (and she'd need to find them first. Perhaps when the internet was being less scary), but today was not the day. Maybe even Elsa had an idea of how to change her back? That would be a godsend. Of course, thinking of Elsa reminded Anna that she had left a human dog locked in her apartment all day, and it probably needed some attention. She'd seen those youtube clips about dogs breaking down walls. Elsa might actually succeed. So, Anna parted ways with Rapunzel long after the sun had set, frustrated with the almost limitless number of books and sick of being inundated with too much information. And, to be perfectly reasonable, useless information. They were guided to their respective rooms by the sputtering streetlights, still struggling after the previous night's storm. There were several inches of snow that still hadn't melted, and Rapunzel sighed. "It'll probably storm again tonight," she said. "Damn, I hate the snow." Anna could only shrug, ambivalent. She could make some snowmen later. That would cheer her up (maybe). The dorm building was dark and silent as Anna walked through, and it only accentuated just how late it had become. Her own room showed absolutely no signs of life as she arrived (and she even pressed her ear to the door, hoping that Elsa was asleep). She didn't want to deal with the girl because, frankly, she wasn't sure how. If she were to be completely honest with herself, Anna was starting to regret getting Elsa. Not because she didn't love her—of course she did!—but more because... she didn't love her. She thought puppies were better than people, but now her puppy was a person. It was like having a child as a room-mate. Anna didn't mind children—after all, she had a little brother who absolutely adored her—but this was different. She wasn't sure how; it just was. Letting out a small sigh, she let her forehead rest on the door. She was just putting off the inevitable, she knew. As if on cue (though in all likelihood, Elsa had probably heard her) there was a sound from behind the door. Taking another breath, she slid her key into the lock and opened the door. She had only just stepped into the room when she was accosted by Elsa. Flicking on the light, she had about a second of visual-freedom before Elsa was licking her face, and Anna could taste the spaghetti she ate for breakfast. "Anna! Anna! Anna!" Elsa cried, never ceasing in her actions—at least, not until Anna pushed her away, spluttering as she tried to get the blonde's slobber from her mouth using the back of her hand. Glancing around the apartment, there were clear signs of Elsa's boredom; her bedsheets had spaghetti stains, and the bowl it had been served in was in pieces by the fridge. It looked as though Elsa had gotten her hands (and teeth) on one of the cushions, because there were pillow-guts strewn across the floor from one end to the other. And, finally looking at the girl, Anna realised that she had spaghetti in her hair and a suspicious rip in the shirt. It was late and Anna did not want to deal with this at the moment. At least Elsa had used the bathroom to 'do her business'. Sighing, Anna stepped forward, ignoring Elsa as she began cleaning up the mess. The blonde stayed by the door, confusing Anna a little in the way that she was not getting in the way of cleaning, but the red-head didn't care to find out the reason. She didn't have time to wash her sheets before bed, but a quick check told her that at least the mess was dry. The cushion went straight into the bin (with a sad sort of moan because it was her favourite cushion) (and obviously Elsa's favourite, too). Anna didn't have a dustpan to clean up the broken bowl, but she did have paper towel and windex; after picking up the bigger pieces, she pretty much just sprayed and wiped, just like the ad said, picking up all the little slivers. Olaf wouldn't be happy the next time she was tasked with babysitting him and she had to tell him that his favourite bowl had been destroyed. Finally, it was clean enough that she could walk over it without getting glass slivers in her feet. Sighing (again. she was doing a lot of sighing, she realised) she stood up and approached Elsa, too tired to bother getting ready for a shower. She just wanted to collapse on her bed, perhaps have a nice relaxing dream (featuring chocolate, Channing Tatum naked, or—preferably—a mix of both). That pleasant thought was broken when she reached for Elsa's hand and the girl let out a squeak, ripping her hand away and stepping back a good three or four metres. For the first time since she got home, Anna just paused, and stared. "Elsa, what happened?" she asked. Her voice was a little harsher than she would have liked it to be, and Elsa flinched, stepping back again. Anna didn't try to follow her. "Elsa made mess," she said to the floor, cradling her hand. "Accident. Elsa try t'clean..." "Aww, Elsa," Anna said, forgetting, momentarily, everything but the girl still standing, lost, by her door. Elsa truly was like a... well, a little girl. Her bottom lip stuck out in a sad pout and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. "Elsa in trouble?" she asked softly, curling in on herself when Anna approached her. The red-head noted with a raised eyebrow (and far slower than she would have liked) the way Elsa had wrapped her arms around her in something other than pain. She looked terrified of something, and Anna couldn't really place it. She was a little too tired to truly fathom it, either. "Come here, Elsa," she murmured softly. Elsa shook her head, keeping her gaze firmly on the ground. "Elsa make accident so Elsa try t'elp," she told the floor. Anna approached her, and though it took a while, she eventually got Elsa onto the couch. The blonde still refused to look at her, instead keeping her eyes trained on either the floor or her hand. "Elsa, you're not in trouble," Anna told her, gently dabbing at her hand with a washcloth she had retrieved from the bathrrom. The girl kept jerking away, making the process far more difficult than it had to be. At least it was tomorrow was a Saturday. Perhaps a play-date (are they even still called that?) with Kristoff and Sven? Anna's eyes widened as she remembered something she said earlier in the day, and she paused with her ministrations. "Elsa," she said softly. "Is there anything you want to ask me?" Elsa shook her head, whimpering slightly as Anna pressed down on the broken skin if her hand. It was a lot worse than it had looked (and it looked pretty bad), with several long cuts running up Elsa's palm. The girl had really done a number on herself, but it didn't look like she was going to need stitches. And, at least it gave Anna something else to focus on aside from the sick feeling in her stomach and the storm outside. "Elsa go t'park t'm'rrow?" The question was quiet, and had Anna's conscience decided any sooner or later to fall silent, she would have missed it. As it were, she wasn't sure how to answer because it raised another point; she had promised. She had promised Elsa and hadn't kept it. No wonder the girl-dog-thing was upset. "I forgot, huh?" she asked, hoping, sort of, to make light of the fact that she had broken a promise. Even the attempt made her feel a little ill because she remembered how Elsa had looked that morning, sitting on the floor. She had seemed so... despondent. Anna wrapped Elsa's hand in a bandage once she had finished cleaning it. Elsa didn't make a sound, and soon Anna was left sitting awkwardly on a couch with her... pet. For the first time since her... transformation... Anna was able to get a good look at the girl. Her hair had miraculously stayed in its braid, and though wispy bits of hair had fallen out, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Her nose was upturned slightly, and she had a light smattering of freckles across her face, beneath wide blue eyes. She was, for all intents and purposes, a gorgeous woman. Just... one that had a penchant for licking everyone and running around naked. And that thought just made everything so much more confusing because she was a gorgeous woman who had already had her tongue on Anna, and whom had already shown the red-head everything. "Will you forgive me if I pinky promise to spend the day with you tomorrow?" It was like a kid on Christmas, the way Elsa's entire face lit up in a massive smile. And probably like lights on the Christmas tree, the way her eyes shone in complete, unfiltered happiness at the suggestion. "Yes!!" she cried out, bouncing in her spot, never taking her eyes off Anna. She let out a little giggle, almost bashfully, and bit her lip. Anna swallowed thickly, not really sure why the expression on Elsa's face made her stomach drop. "Bed time?" she suggested (well, sort of... squeaked). At that point, it seemed like Elsa would agree to anything and everything because she was once again nodding, the smile still plastered on her face. Perhaps part of the nausea came from the fact that Elsa was so happy to be around Anna and the red-head felt nothing but weird and awkward and... she didn't know how to act, really. And it was stupid because just the other day Anna had been rolling around n the floor, letting Elsa crawl all over her, sniffing and licking and being adorable. And this Elsa was the same. It was Anna who couldn't handle it. "Come on," she said. "Bed time." She left Elsa on the couch, still far too excited than was good for that time of night. Anna kept turning around to look at her, and was always met with a cheesy grin that looked so at home on the blonde's face. Anna only turned her back for a minute—a minute, she swore—but when she returned to the couch with a pillow and a blanket, Elsa was nowhere to be seen. "Elsa?" she called out softly. There was an equally soft answer emanating from... her bed? Sure enough, Elsa was curled on top of Anna's green sheets, blinking her large blue eyes in the direction of the red-head. "Aww, come on, Elsa," Anna said. "You can't stay there." "Anna say bed time," came the sleepy reply. "Yes," Anna conceded. "But that's my bed, Elsa." The blonde cocked her head (well, as best she could, considering her position on the mattress) and frowned. "Elsa bed." Anna approached, her, putting the extra blankets on the couch before sitting on the edge of the bed. Elsa grabbed her hand as soon as she could reach and tucked it under her head. Anna didn't waste any time in removing it. "No, Elsa," she said. "I'm tired and we have a big day tomorrow. You have to sleep on the couch." Anna was careful but still somewhat forceful as she tugged Elsa to her feet and pushed her down onto the couch. "Stay here, Elsa," she said when the girl tried to jump up from her seat. The blonde settled back into the chair, but not without a small pout and averted eyes. Anna gave her a light pat, ignoring the way Elsa leaned into her hand. It made her insides coil uncomfortably, and she still had no idea why. That, more than anything, frustrated her. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" she said. Elsa gave a small nod but didn't look up. Without really thinking about it, Anna leaned down and placed a tiny, chaste kiss to the side of Elsa's temple. "G'night..." Elsa finally did raise her head to meet Anna's gaze, her lips curled slightly at the corners in a smile. The tightness of her stomach relaxed a little, and Anna was able to give her own (if not quite as candid or genuine) in return. "Go to sleep, Elsa," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow an we can go to the park and play." Elsa nodded and lay down, never taking her eyes from Anna. When the red-head finally collapsed on her own bed, after making a slight detour to turn off the light, she all but collapsed on her mattress, arms up above her head. Scrunching her nose up when she realised that she hadn't had a shower, Anna couldn't actually find it in herself to care. She could always take one in the morning. Curling over, she hugged her pillow and fell asleep, knowing, but not caring to admit it, that the bed seemed awfully lonely without a little bundle of hair to hug. Perhaps there was something more to the wishes that Anna was missing, because she awoke, not two hours later, to Elsa snuggled deep into her side. She had crept under the blankets like a thief, curled into as tight a ball as her willowy frame would allow. Anna had been drooling on her pillow, and the whole left side of her face was sticky as, using the light of that same sputtering street-lamp she passed earlier, she frowned. Elsa was fast asleep, nuzzled into her chest. Elsa cant be left alone chapter, The Category:Tiny Hearts chapters